From Combat to Community: a Study of how Community-based Approach to Disarmament, Demobilisation, and Reintegration (DDR) can Contribute More Effectively to Peacebuilding: The Case of Sierra Leone

Abstract The disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR) of ex-combatants is one of the vital elements of peacebuilding with the objective of reconciling ex-combatants into communities and reducing the likelihood of renewed violence. However, whilst the use of DDR continues to grow, it has been criticised for its focus on ex-combatants rather than communities; thus, sometimes it creates divisions among community members and strains the entire peacebuilding process. In view of this limited approach to DDR, academics and practitioners alike are increasingly arguing for a community-based (CB) approach, especially during the reintegration process, as a way of addressing resentment among community members, which impedes more effective peacebuilding. Despite its popularity, it is not clear what the CB approach to reintegration means, so this thesis sets out to explore that approach. Exploring how CB reintegration programmes can facilitate more effective peacebuilding; this research identified the fact that most programmes, that claimed to be CB, thereby involving communities in the planning and implementation process, were instead only community-located (CL). These critical insights emerged from empirical research carried out in Sierra Leone, by drawing on Bartle’s (2007) argument that for a programme to be CB it must be chosen, selected and/or controlled by the community. Thus, an outside agency’s programme, which is merely located in a community and has some level of community participation, cannot claim CB status, but rather it is CL. The research, therefore, compares CB and CL reintegration programmes to establish which of these programmes facilitates more effective peacebuilding, so that a comprehensive approach to planning and implementation of CB programmes can be developed.